SACRAMENTO — California just flipped the kill switch for smartphones, in a move to make iCrime a thing of the past.

Governor Jerry Brown signed into law State Sen. Mark Leno’s Smartphone Theft Prevention Act (Senate Bill 962). The law will affect any smartphone manufactured on or after July 1, 2015.

There’s some reason to hope that the kill switch will do for smartphones what sophisticated alarm systems did for cars: make stealing them less appealing than a pair of leg warmers. Car thefts plummeted 96 percent in New York City when engine immobilizer systems came into play.

Introduced in iOS 7, Activation Lock is a feature that prevents users who recover a lost or stolen iPhone from activating the device without signing in with the Apple ID used to erase the device remotely.

By all accounts, Activation Lock has made a difference in stopping smartphone theft, especially in New York. But in California, law may very well mandate smartphone features like Activation Lock shortly.

SACRAMENTO — The state where the iPhone was born came a step closer to a law that might help keep it in your hands.

State Sen. Mark Leno’s Smartphone Theft Prevention Act (Senate Bill 962) passed the state legislature this morning with a 51-18 vote. Now it will move on to the Senate for a vote on amendments.

California won’t be the first state to flip the kill switch – that distinction goes to Minnesota, which heeded the call from consumers in May. If the law passes in the most populous state in the U.S. and the birthplace of the iPhone, it may mark a sea change in similar legislation. California’s law will affect any smartphone manufactured on or after July 1, 2015.

Apple Fanboy One Percenters (if such a thing exists) looking for new real estate might be tempted to scoop up the open condo next to Tim Cook, but if you’re looking for something more high-tech, with a bigger price tag, this iPad-controlled mansion in Newport Beach, California just came on the market, and it’ll only set you back $22 million.

It’s a mansion worthy of Fortune Cookie himself thanks to incredible beachfront views. And it fits in with Apple’s push for green renewable energy as 95% of its electricity is supplied by a gigantic solar panel in the backyard.

Did you know that the new Apple Campus 2 “spaceship” is wider across than the Empire State Building is tall? It’s going to cost 60 times more than the Pentagon did back in 1943, too. Heck, you’ll be able to cram up to 35 jetliners full of passengers in its rounded confines without breaking a sweat.

We thought it would be great, then, to take a look at some of the details of the new campus, set to finish construction in 2016.

It’s big. Like, Pentagon big.

The proposed Apple Campus 2 is huge. Apple plans to put a 100,000-square-foot fitness center, 11,000 parking spaces, 2,000 bike parking spaces, 2.8 million square feet of office space, and a 100,000-square-foot lab. Oh, and a restaurant. All of this in four stories, housing 12,000 employees.

The Pentagon, in contrast, which itself was completed in 1943, has 3.7 million square feet of office space, is seven floors tall, and houses 25,000 people.

A lot of krill, and a lot of oil, really.

The Apple Campus 2 will have a 1,522 foot diameter, which means the Empire State Building could comfortably lie down somewhere inside its massive circular footprint. Heck, a T1-class Supertanker could fit in there, as well, with its 1,246 foot length, and you’d have to get somewhere around seven or eight blue whales–the largest known mammal on Earth–just to get across half of the diameter of the new Apple Campus. That’s a lot of krill.

I’d pick sunny California, too.

The spaceship campus has plans to hold 12,000 employees within it’s solar-panel-using, green technology hallowed halls, which would fill something like 160 double-decker buses, or 35 Boeing 747 jets. The Apple folks will have it easier, as they’ll at least be able to get nice food there, and a much less foggy view in Cupertino than in London.

Beam me up, Ivey.

Of course, no look at anything tech-related is complete without a comparison to a fictional starship, and since we’ve been calling this the spaceship campus since Steve Jobs unveiled the design two years ago, it seemed fitting to see how it stacks up against the USS Enterprise. Unfortunately for trekkies, the new Apple Campus 2 has a diameter quite a bit larger than the original Gene Roddenberry creation.

Nice salaries, folks.

The city of Cupertino itself, home not only to Apple founders Woz and Jobs but also author Raymond Carver and actor Aaron Eckhart, only has around five times the population as will work in the Apple Campus 2. Interestingly, the median income of Cupertino-based Apple employees is a bit lower than that of Cupertino in general, but perhaps that’s just a function of how much larger the city is than the building. Which, to be honest, doesn’t seem to be that much of a news item. It is, however, funny that a .27 square mile building can cause the kind of traffic jams that the city of 11.26 square miles seems to be mostly worried about.

A Google Glass user in California may have become the first to get a ticket for using the wearable while driving. Cecilia Adabie was stopped by a Highway Patrol officer last night then summoned to the superior court for “driving with monitor visible to driver.”

The ticket has sparked debate over whether or not it should be legal to use Google Glass while behind the wheel.

The iPhone has become just as much a camera as a communication device. So if you love using your iPhone and want to take advantage of its ability to take great photos then Cult of Mac has a video course for you – and at the low price of only $19 for a limited time.